ACC Automation: PLC & Industrial Control Learning
Practical Tips and Techniques
We will be installing an industrial USB to RS485 converter on our computer. The Waveshare USB to serial port is a 2-wire USB to RS-485 serial communication adapter for RS485 use. It does not require an external power supply or complicated configuration. It has a Type A (plug) USB connector for the computer side and … Read more
If you want to install a USB to RS485 adapter on your computer, you’ve come to the right place. We will use the CH340/341 USB to Serial port, an adapter that translates USB data into RS-485 communication. There is no need for an external power source or a head-scratching setup. It’s as easy as insertion, … Read more
Node-RED HTTP Request can be used to read any BRX Do-More PLC memory area. This HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) communication will only read information from our controller. The BRX Do-More REST API is used to read information using a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) or web address. We will be using the HTTP request node in … Read more
We will now look at the data logging capability using our Click plus PLC. Data logging is the collection of data over time. This is usually used for data analysis at a later time. The amount of data (System Information) stored and the frequency of the storage will depend on your specific application. The hardware … Read more
We will now look at the connection to our SQL database using a spreadsheet application. Previously we used Node-RED to communicate Modbus TCP and RTU to our Click PLC and Solo Temperature Controller. The information collected from the controllers was then put into an SQLite SQL database. Spreadsheets like Excel are great for analysis of … Read more
We will now look at the MQTT communication capability using our Click plus PLC. MQTT stands for Message Queuing Telemetry Transport. This simple ‘publish and subscribe’ communication protocol, does not take too many resources. Constrained devices with low bandwidth are ideal for MQTT. This protocol provides machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity which is ideal for the Internet … Read more
Node-RED can easily log data to a database. SQL (Structured Query Language) can be used to communicate to a SQL database. Databases separate analysis from the data unlike spreadsheets like Excel. The database is designed to hold more information than spreadsheets and allow multiple users to access the information. We will be creating an SQLite … Read more
We will now establish communication using four different methods from our computer to the new Click Plus controller. The click programming software version 3.00 will be used for the communication methods. Click Plus controllers allow you to program them through the micro USB port on every CPU. WiFi (Bluetooth Provisioning) is also available on some … Read more
Node-RED can easily display interactive information to the user or operator using a web browser on your phone, tablet, or computer. Any device that has access to the network in which node-red is running. We will be installing the node-red-dashboard palette. This allows us to create a live data dashboard user interface. (UI) The information … Read more
Node-RED can easily connect to industrial controls using Modbus communication. Modbus is a master-slave type of communication. Masters will always send the commands to read or write to the slaves on the network. The slaves will respond if the communication is directed at them. We will be installing the node-red-contrib-modbus palette. This will allow us … Read more